Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: This article explores the role of references to dystopian literature in the context of developing privacy laws. Drawing on a qualitative analysis of a large corpus of legislative and judicial texts from Germany and the United Kingdom, I demonstrate that references to popular dystopian works of fiction like Orwell’s 1984 have animated and shaped the legal recognition of privacy. Specifically, dystopian visions are evoked as reasons that warrant the legal protection of privacy rights. I explore lawmakers’ vision of a technologically empowered totalitarian state and discuss how these connect to historical, contemporary, and hypothetical examples of unjust regimes. I argue that literary imaginations of dystopia are often themselves built on historical experience, suggesting that the aptness for social critique is, as literary critics suggest, built into dystopia as a genre. I furthermore explore how the theme of democracy is employed as a counterpoint to fears of dystopian totalitarianism. Portraying privacy invasions as harmful to democratic ideals discursively amplifies their dangerousness—and thereby works to justify regulatory intervention. My research findings prompt us to view legal norms as a cultural artifact that reflect cultural imagination and literary narratives.
Source: Law Culture and the Humanities
Author: Alice Schneider
Institution: Stanford University
Language: English
Topic: Law, Rights, and Freedoms
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4403537489